SOVIET UNION: Unhitching Podgorny from the Troika

The first announcement that the
President of the Soviet Union had been stripped of power was not even
the lead item on Radio Moscow's 5 p.m. newscast. After a droning,
ten-minute report last week on a speech by Party Chief Leonid Brezhnev
came a terse sentence: "At a plenary meeting of the Central Committee
Nikolai Podgorny was relieved of his duties as a member of the
Politburo." Next morning Pravda buried the news in the 26th paragraph
of a 29-paragraph story on the meeting. Kremlinologists expect that
Podgorny, 74, will be formally...